Los Roques is a National Park and is one of the offshore Venezuelan islands – about 70 miles north of the capital Caracas on the mainland. It is an unbelievable cruising area made up of about 14 by 25 miles of protected, reef-studded water, dotted with pretty little islands. It appeared very similar to the Bahamas.
We arrived at the south eastern entrance of Los Roques - Boca De Sebastopol. As a precaution we lowered all our sails before entering into the passage, due to reefs all around, even though the guide book said it was possible to sail. It was a spectacular 10 miles motor up to Grand Roque, with reefs on both sides. The light was fantastic and it was very easy to navigate between the very visible reefs.
Venezuela has strange customs and immigrations rules, in that, even if you check in at Los Roques, you need to go to the mainland to check out – we had no intention of going anywhere near the mainland of Venezuela! And this would be a reason for avoiding Los Roques. However, we had found out from friends ahead of us that the coast guard will give you a 2 day “in transit” pass without requiring you to check in formally. However, you are not allowed to cruise around the islands and need to keep your vessel in the bay at El Grand Roque.
With its 380 foot hills El Grand Roque stands out like a beacon across the other flat islands.
This is the only island with a village on it and it also has the main (small) airport (at the end of the street). There are no cars and the streets are sand (which they sweep).
It’s a quaint fishing village with a few bars / restaurants and fishing boats along the beach.
The colours of the sea and sand are spectacular.
Los Roques is reputed to have the best bone fishing in the world. Most of the houses were built as holiday homes for Venezuelans and they are simple but pleasant. There are many Posadas / inns for visitors and many fishermen now rent out their homes. There were only a couple of other foreign vessels in the bay – mainly Venezuelan charter boats.
Checking in was an interesting procedure.
First we went to the coast guard. The officials were all dressed up in army uniform. I spoke more Spanish than they spoke English, which meant communication was pretty limited! When he was asking how many days we were staying, I was answering “5” as the number of people on board – they then said “no possible” ….. Then when he was asking how much fuel we carried in both tanks combined - and I was telling him the combined HP of our engines! – he thought 80 liters of fuel wasn’t right…. He wrote down all our details on one line in a ledger book. We had heard that we needed to clear in with 4 different officials – Coastguard, National Guard, Parks and Immigration - however, when the coastguard said “finito” we took that as a cue to run and forget about anyone else…
We had been told to come with US$. The bank rate was 4.5 Bolivars to 1US$ however the “official” black market rate (in the shops and bars) was about 7 to 1US$. This made beers about US$1.5. After so long in the Eastern Caribbean it was interesting to now be in a Spanish environment and culture.
The main “supermarket” gets supplies from the mainland about once a week. On the first day we asked where the supermarket was and was told there was nothing in it!! – the next day it was full of supplies as we saw small fishing boats land and offload supplies. Food shortage is wide spread though out Venezuela.
Charlotte found a park and played with the local kids.
Cathy and I tried to teach the naught little boy to count in English, rather than him ripping up the bench… The boys climbed up a great big tiny hill to see the old lighthouse.
We saw the healthiest and most wide spread mangroves that we have seen in the world.
In one of our economizing measures to finish off everything on the boat we managed to finished off the bottle of tequila and margarita mix – which was a good night but not necessarily a good following morning!
We had a very enjoyable stop in Los Roques. We left about 7.30am Friday morning, weaving our way west through the Los Roques Island for about 15 miles. Once we were clear of the islands, we popped the spinnaker again and had a great downwind spinnaker run to our next stop, Islas de Aves – about 45 miles away. We are really getting to like these down wind spinnaker runs!!
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